Exploring the Impact of Remuneration on Advertising Value & Attitudes: A Perspective During the Covid-19 Crises

The study investigates the impact of an unexplored motivational construct i.e., remuneration, on consumers' attitudes towards social media advertising (CATSMA). It proposes that this underlying relationship is mediated by perceived social media advertising value (PSMAV). The research takes under consideration the pandemic era of Covid-19, where the dependency on digital transactions has accelerated. Consumer responses are undertaken virtually by the young and dynamic audience of Pakistan, who consume social media as a way of life. The research deploys a variance-based structural equation modeling (SEM), by using a partial least squares (PLS) approach in the form of SmartPLS 3. The results show that remuneration plays an instrumental role in enhancing the value of advertising and also developing desirable consumers' attitudes on social media. The findings also reveal that advertising value exerts a significant impact on users' evaluative criteria and also mediates the relationship between remuneration and underlying attitudes. This empirical research is one of the embryonic social media investigations undertaken in a Pakistani context, transforming through the covid crisis.